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Technology Stocks : Ascend Communications (ASND) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Alok Sinha who wrote (29429)	1/5/1998 4:23:00 PM
From: Sector Investor	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 61433

OK Williams Network, Okla Bjt,0743 Tulsa company returns to wholesale telecommunications TULSA, Okla. (AP) Williams made a fast break Monday from midcourt of Madison Square Garden, where company executives announced their return to the business of long-distance wholesaling of telecommunications services. Data traffic will become more efficient and less costly for utilities, Internet service providers and other technology customers who use Williams Network, the company leaders said. Keith Bailey, chairman, president and CEO, said Williams Network will serve as a ''carrier's carrier'' and a premier way to transmit voice, data, TV broadcasts and Internet communications. Revenue commitments from wholesale customers already amount to $1 billion, the Tulsa company says. The announcement occurred one day before the expiration of a noncompete agreement with WorldCom. Williams had sold the long-distance portion of its telecommunications business to WorldCom for $2.5 billion in January 1995, agreeing not to invade WorldCom's turf for three years. But Williams, which retained a strand of fiber throughout the 11,000-mile network, is re-entering the market and planning to expand to 18,000 miles by early 1999. ''We will be even better this time around,'' Bailey said, standing on center court of the New York basketball arena. ''It's appropriate to say we're truly on our game.'' ''We reloaded, we're relaunching and we're for real,'' said Howard Janzen, president and chief executive officer of the Williams communication group. Projected effects on employment were not disclosed. Williams Communications employs nearly 8,000 employees in about 150 offices across North America and in London and Singapore. Analysts praised the move as bold and well-timed for the booming demand for technology. They said Williams will have to clear several hurdles, including name recognition and market education. ''Their plan seems to pretty solid,'' said Dataquest chief analyst Brett Azuma of San Jose, Calif. ''They seem to be pretty disciplined about how they're going to go about this.'' ''They are creating abundant supply, which will allow the demand to grow in any direction it wants to go,'' said strategies analyst David Cooperstein of Forrester Research Inc. in Cambridge, Mass. Williams took out adjacent full-page ads in Monday's Tulsa World to promote the network as innovative and historic. Williams, with its roots in natural gas, got into telecommunications in 1985 by turning idle pipelines into conduits for fiber-optic cable. Executives say the company and its three business units are much stronger these days with $13.3 billion in assets, about 14,000 employees and efforts under way to merge with MAPCO Inc. in a $2.7 billion stock deal this spring. Janzen said Williams Network will help feed Americans' insatiable appetite for technology. ''We never intended to exit this business,'' he said. ''We retained critical elements as foundation for the future. That future is now.'' Williams announced Monday it will buy core switches from Ascend Communications Inc. for $150 million. Officials say the sophisticated new devices will provide a greater variety of speeds to accommodate bandwidth needs for customers. Williams also signed a five-year contract with U S West Communications for an undisclosed amount. U S West, one of the Baby Bells created from AT&T's breakup 13 years ago, was described as an ''anchor tenant'' of the network. New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani attended the news conference Monday to accept a $10,000 donation from Williams to Project Smart Schools, which buys computers for the classroom.